Archive | August, 2014

South Africa avoided slipping into a recession in the second quarter as solid growth in the agriculture and financial industries outweighed a hammering in the strike-hit mining sector, economic data showed on Tuesday. Africa’s most developed economy has been suffering in recent times due to successive waves of labour unrest which have battered corporate confidence. In addition, rising food and fuel prices have squeezed consumers.

Q & A on applying for a bond with Fin24
I would like to know a bit more about getting a bond and what is taken into account when one applies. My girlfriend and I have started working at the beginning of the year. We both have entry level jobs, so our salaries are not that great at the moment, but we do have a few benefits. We are looking at buying a property in about three years’ time. In the area where we would like to stay, an average small property costs about R1m.

Active fund management is outmoded, and a lot of stock pickers are going to have to find something else to do for a living. The debate about whether you should hire an “active” fund manager who tries to beat the market by buying the best stocks and avoiding the worst—or a “passive” index fund that simply matches the market by holding all the stocks—is over. To Mr. Ellis, the future for many portfolio managers is clear: “Lots of them are going to have to go find something else to do, because the line of work they originally trained for will be fading away.” One obvious destination, he says, is financial planning. Tens of millions of Americans need a financial adviser, but only a few hundred thousand advisers are available—many of whom aren’t investing experts. Who better to fill the insatiable demand for financial advisers than former portfolio managers who know firsthand how hard it is to beat the market? This way, Mr. Ellis says, “investors will get better, more-valuable service from smarter people.” In short, many stock pickers should get out of the business of managing investments and get into the business of managing investors.

EIGHT months into his tenure as Spar Group CE, Graham O’Connor has snapped up an 80% stake in BWG Group, the Spar brand owner in Ireland and southwest England. The expansion comes at a time when Ireland is back on an economic growth path after a five-year recession sparked by the global financial crisis. One of Europe’s hardest-hit countries, Ireland’s GDP contracted by almost 20% during the recession. Retail sales slumped by almost 40%.
The first sign of a recovery came in 2013 when Ireland’s GDP blipped 0,2% higher. It is now on track to grow at 2,5% in 2014 and 3,3% in 2015, reports the Central Bank of Ireland. With the GDP rise has come a big revival in consumer confidence, which in July hit its highest level since January 2007, notes KBC Bank. This contrasts with a bleak picture in SA, where food sales volume growth has all but stalled. Under the circumstances Spar is doing well, says O’Connor. Particularly pleasing, he says, is Spar’s sustained like-for-like store sales growth, something now eluding its major competitors, which are locked in a race to expand retail space.

Africa’s leaders have agreed to end hunger and cut poverty in half by 2025 with the signing of the Malabo Declaration at the 23rd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union Heads of State and Government last month.

A wrap fund is a basket of different collective investment schemes wrapped as a single investment portfolio. The underlying combination of collective investment schemes is selected to optimally target the risk/return requirements and investment objectives of the client. In fact, it’s a number of separate investments in which the investor has direct ownership and could […]

Five models are being considered to ease the financial woes of Cape Town Stadium, but they do not include either demolition or a casino.
Angry ratepayers described the plans for the stadium and its precinct as a “farce”, “smoke and mirrors” and a waste of ratepayers’ money.
The stadium generates between R12 million and R15m a year, but it costs the city and ratepayers R55m to keep it going.

Moneyweb has uncovered an apparent widespread practice where electricity resellers illegally overcharge domestic consumers for electricity. This typically affects end-users in sectional title flats and townhouses. After an investigation Moneyweb can reveal that a Pretoria reseller, MeinRoux (Pty) Ltd., trading as Prepaid Electric, has been unlawfully inflating electricity tariffs and pocketing R10 for every R100 voucher sold, in contravention of the Electricity Act and municipal by-laws.

The world of retail just got easier, again! You can now pay for your goods with cash, card or your cell phone App called SnapScan.What is SnapScan? SnapScan is a smartphone app that lets you use your phone to pay for things in shops.